Here With Me
by Totally-Out-Of-It
Summary: FutureFic Slash Arthur lives on in the present day, surrounded by his family and knights, but the memory of Merlin haunts him. 'It is a tingle in my brain, a recognition that brings back the far past. And the images are driving me mad.' 'Stay with me.'


A/N: This is a story I've been trying to figure out how to write for over a year. It was inspired by this music video There Are Legends (www. youtube. com/watch? v=-mztW5QTiAE - without the spaces of course). My first try after watching the video was horrible and didn't capture the feeling at all, but I'm extremely happy with this one... even if the tenses don't entirely match up. I think it flows properly and gets to the feelings I'm trying for.

Let me know what you think!

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><p>'<em>I'm dying.'<em>

The smoke ran up into the sky, painting everything in shadow that day.

'_Yes_.'

One bleeding from the head, the other from the side; they sat together by the bodies of countless men.

'_I know you said you didn't like to… but, can you see the future for me? Is this the end?'_

The hidden sky reflected in his eyes, and he closed them to hide its brightness.

'_Nothing is ever the end. The gods will look after us. We'll see each other again.'_

The sun flickered through a gap in the fire and warmed them. He opened his eyes to take it in.

'_Stay with me.'_

He smiled and bent over the other, setting their faces against each other and kissing by the other's ear. His voice was weak but clear.

'_I will always be with you.'_

I shuddered in the sunlight that burned my skin. It was the new sun, not the one of the past but the one of the present. It was not the one that had bathed us that day. Sitting in the park, I could still hear our last words, still feel the warmth of that sun and the fire, still ache with approaching death, still smell the sulfur and smoke and magic. It still hurt. Every day, gods be damned, it hurt.

And it wasn't the head wound or the sword cuts or the broken ribs. It was the loss. I lost the knights; all but a handful were taken out of this world before me. I lost family; my sister, my cousins, my friends. I lost the kingdom; the main city had burned for days and no heir took my throne. But most of all I lost love. The last words spoken on that battlefield were precious. He'd bled over me, promised me forever, and died with me. He'd promised. Till then I had no reason to doubt, and yet…

Where was he?

I'd awoken, a screaming baby growing up in a new land and time with new family members. I grew up knowing everything I had been and conforming easily to who I was to be now. I knew my family and loved them beyond hope or reason, but as time grew so did my awareness. I can feel them. Sitting here now in the park, I can sense their lives. My people.

Gwaine grew up two cities away and now lives down the street. He's in the movie business, small part, and trying to be a producer. Lancelot and Gwen were poor as church mice but living like a true storybook romance in America. Mordred had been orphaned as a child and instantly adopted by a family in Ireland where he seemed happy and content with life. He started high school in the Fall. The other knights, over a hundred, spread out across the globe. They lived their lives, and I could feel them all.

Lancelot, Guinevere, Gwaine, Mordred, Morgana; I could breathe them in without trouble, and the rest I could sense like a physical object whenever I pleased. Morgana was my roommate; a flamboyant and raging woman full of spunk and joy about the world and her life in London. She dated frequently and swore each time she'd never date again. In her evenings she teases me about life. She claims to know only this time, but I recognize the tint in her eyes, the spring of magic within her that refuses to let her completely forget – just like the curse upon me. Sometimes I wish she would admit it all to me. Sometimes I prefer it this way, living in the now and forgetting our past fighting.

I sense and know them all like part of myself, but there is one I can never feel.

"Merlin," I breathe into the afternoon breeze. I can smell him, constant and intense. It is not so much an aroma as it is a tingle in my brain, a recognition that brings back the far past. I can't feel him like the others. I can't sense how he's doing. I can't think and know his movements. I can't.

But I can see him. God, do I see him. Everywhere. In the cafeteria in primary school, in the halls of university, in the aisles of the market, in the crowds on the street; we pass each other and share the space, but when I look to find him, he's gone – missing in the big world, and I'm just tiny me. I've chased him, called to him, torn myself to pieces in the search, but he's just not there. And the images are driving me mad.

I can't have him. I can smell him. I can see him. I can touch him in my dreams, but in this life I cannot have him. With every second glance, he vanishes. He isn't replaced by a true face. He just isn't there. At night I lean into the breeze through my window and pretend I can tell where he is, that he's close, but it's always so distant, so small a feeling that I can't even force myself to believe I can grab onto him.

Where is he? After the stars have glimmered for past an hour, I give up on searching and lie in bed waiting to be found. Twenty five years! Twenty five years I have looked and waited and neither found nor been found. I just want the images gone. I have loved through the centuries, but this endless dream hurts too much. He said he'd be with me, be by my side, but if he cannot be here in person, I wish his spirit would leave me.

And there again, even as I think such things, I look down the hill and see him walking toward the queen's garden. I watch him walk across half the field before the entrance. He pauses there, glances in my direction, and then he's gone into the pathways of trees and bushes. My heart stops. I've watched now for almost five minutes. He didn't disappear. He was there. And even despite my decision that this chase had run me down and I wouldn't do it anymore, I find myself hurrying down to the garden entrance to check just one more time.

I'm through the hedge and into the gardenias before anyone can really recognize that I left my spot on the hill. But he's not there. I don't see him. For a moment I curse, my eyes have tricked me again, and then I see him, sitting on the bench by the fountain, sketching something. There are people all about, but an image has never hung around this long, so I don't worry that he'll vanish. My heart is beating too hard and I feel a rush through my limbs. I can smell him over the flowers.

I'm six feet from him when he looks up. He smiles when he sees me and drops his things to the seat beside him. Then he's standing and I can't help myself. Hallucination or dream, I hop the remaining distance and give only a moments warning before I'm kissing his cheeks and nose, wrapping my arms around him.

This is no illusion. He's here.

"Where have you been?" I ask when the emotions permit it. The insanity has driven my eyes to sting with tears.

"Life isn't as simple as it used to be," he says. "I've been trying to find you for years."

I cannot help but snort. This is all too ridiculous. If only he knew what I'd been through over him – but then again, he probably did. He holds me close and pets my hair. No one is paying us any mind.

"I missed you," he says.

"I love you," I reply. Our cheeks are pressed close, and I hear the way his breath stops. "Stay with me," I say.

He smiles and leans his head into mine, his mouth by my ear.

"Always, Arthur," he promises. "I will always be with you."

And I'm alive.


End file.
